Computing systems have made significant contributions toward the advancement of modern society and are utilized in a number of applications to achieve advantageous results. Numerous devices, such as desktop personal computers (PCs), laptop PCs, tablet PCs, netbooks, smart phones, game consoles, servers, distributed computing systems, and the like have facilitated increased productivity and reduced costs in communicating and analyzing data in most areas of entertainment, education, business, and science. One common aspect of computing systems is the computing device readable memory. Computing devices may include one or more types of memory, such as volatile random-access memory, non-volatile flash memory, and the like.
An emerging non-volatile memory technology is Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM). In MRAM devices, data can be stored in the magnetization orientation between ferromagnetic layers. Typically, if the ferromagnetic layers have the same magnetization polarization, the cell will exhibit a relatively low resistance value corresponding to a ‘0’ bit state; while if the magnetization polarization between the two ferromagnetic layers is antiparallel the memory cell will exhibit a relatively high resistance value corresponding to a ‘1’ bit state. Because the data is stored in the magnetic fields, MRAM devices are non-volatile memory devices. The state of a MRAM cell can be read by applying a predetermined current through the cell and measuring the resulting voltage, or by applying a predetermined voltage across the cell and measuring the resulting current. The sensed current or voltage is proportional to the resistance of the cell and can be compared to a reference value to determine the state of the cell.
MRAM devices are characterized by densities similar to Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM), power consumption similar to flash memory, and speed similar to Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM). However, similar to other memory types, there is a continuing need to achieve further device scaling of MRAM devices and/or reduce device defects.